When no one is here,
I eat all the cheesecake
with my unwashed hands. I’ve forgotten
what my face looks like, as I will
forget yours. I feel
a pounding, sharp
wings or stones shaking, African
violets. Branches—what grows
there? At night I sleep on a couch
near my son’s bed because
I don’t know what will happen,
or if I am ever
not ugly—but he—. Look at what
I am not. And if it’s true
a man rots or is eaten, chased down,
a harvested chaff— these sticky, skinny fingers.
Who gives such a girl
any kingdom or quiet rest.

Author of the article

Sara Moore Wagner is a Pushcart nominated poet whose work has appeared most recently or is forthcoming in Stirring, Gigantic Sequins, Alyss, IDK Magazine, Reservoir, The Wide Shore, and the Pittsburgh Poetry Review, among others. Her chapbook, Hooked Through, was published by Five Oaks Press in early 2017. She lives in Cincinnati with her filmmaker husband Jon and their children, Daisy, Vivienne, and Cohen, where she teaches at Xavier and Northern Kentucky University. Find her at saramoorewagner.com